Kids drew circles with chalk on the pavement of the parade route both to occupy their time till the parade started and in case a horse left a little gift in one of the circles, the person whose name was ...
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

Sally Skull, aka Wendy Venable, one of the Grand Ladies of the Old West, treats Shiloh with a piece of a donut while waiting their turn to join the parade in Coronado Thursday.
— Peggy Peattie / /UT San Diego

From left to right, 6 year old Cambria Hackett, 3 year old Devin Plutner, and father of Devin, Dave Plutner build a sand castle at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, Ca. Photo Credit: JEFF BROWN/ U-T San Diego
— JEFF BROWN/ U-T San Diego

Linda Gabourel, from Los Angeles, wears patriotic clothing while holding a pina colada for her and her daughter as they celebrate the Fourth of July on the beach on the bay side of Coronado Island.
— Hayne Palmour IV

August Santore Jr. of Garden State Fireworks shouts to his brother Christopher Santore on the phone as the Big Bay Boom fireworks display goes off successfully. The brothers designed the show and suffered a malfunction at last years 4th of ...
— James Gregg

A group of men, who said they were from Palestine, do a traditional Palestinian dance as they and thousands of other people wait on Coronado Island for the start of the Big Bay Boom fireworks display.
— Hayne Palmour IV

People also packed the beaches, as they always do on the Fourth of July, and by noon San Diego police had issued a traffic advisory that beach parking lots were full.

San Diego officials estimated 516,000 people hit the city’s beaches, up from 409,000 last year when it was a little cold and cloudy, said lifeguard Lt. Rich Strobel.

At city beaches, lifeguards made 132 water rescues, Strobel said. They also had to pluck from the cliffs above Black’s Beach two men who got stuck about 12:30 p.m., he said.

Up the coast in Encinitas, paramedics were called to the beach four times, including three instances in which women were stung by a stingray, lifeguard Capt. Larry Giles said. About 30,000 people turned out on the city’s 3.5 miles of coastline, Giles said.

At parks and community centers, lots of picnics and barbecues were held. You couldn’t walk in the grassy fields of the Mira Mesa Community Park without passing a proud griller.

The Mira Mesa festivities, which included a parade and carnival rides, marked the 39th year of Family Fun Day in the community.

Like so many of her family members have done before, 9-year-old Jacqueline Riel was in the parade. She did it while singing, playing her ukulele and wearing her Brownie uniform.

Yes, Jacqueline said, it was “cool” to march in her first parade. But she also said, “It was very hot and my feet are hurting.”

Her mother, April Riel, said she has been coming to the festivities since her son marched in the parade route as a Cub Scout. He’s now 23 and just graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy as a Marine 2nd lieutenant.

“I like that they have done this event for years, and it is always going to be here,” said Riel, 48. “It’s a nice tradition to celebrate being an American.”